Grounding for flashbacks

The idea of grounding is basically using your senses to keep you in the present.

~Takedeep breaths, in through the nose, out through the mouth, breathein forthe count of 4, hold for 2 and out for 5 (but counting slowly).Thiswill stop you panicking.

~Think about all the things you can see,make a list (be that mentally,verbally, or actually written down, oftena written down list can drawyou back to the present easier), say themone by one, think about eachof them, their texture, colour, where theyare, etc.

~Think about what you can hear, and work through touch, taste, feel, as well, in the same detailed manner.

~Think about who you trust that is around you.

~Remind yourself of todays day, the date, the month, year.

~Tell yourself that you are safe and can not be hurt.

~Ifyou can, look in a mirror, look at yourself now, at this age,remindyourself that you are safe, talk to yourself in the mirror.

~Ifappropriate hold something that grounds you, or that makes youfeelsafe, like maybe a little teddy, or stone, or keyring or something.

Keepdoing it over and over and it will work, often doing it withsomeone canmake it easier for you to focus on bringing yourself backto thepresent.

It won’t be a quick and easy solution, but the more you practice the easier and more effective it should be.

Holdingyour breath and closing your eyes – Hold your breath fora little whileand shutting your eyes really tight. It helps becausewhen you open themagain, the senses are heightened and you canconcentrate on them for.The only thing is getting through the closingyour eyes bit because ittends to intensify the flashback.

Don’t fight it – Flashbacks are horrible and scary that’strue….but the fact is youhave already lived through this it can neverhurt you in the way it hurtyou back then. Fighting the flashbacks canoften make them get worse.They wont to be seen and heard so they canbe dealt with and you canheal. So when its safe to do so – don’t fightthe flashback. Go with it.Don’t fightit. Its OK to cry, its ok to hurt and be angry, Whateveryour feelingit is OK to express….but remember you already got throughthe hardestpart.

Take control – Flashbacks arein your head. This means though itfeels there in control YOU ARE. Tryand control; manipulate, the imagesyour seeing. When it comes to mindpush the image away make it smalleran smaller…bring it closer. Spin itupside now. Pause it (that’s a goodone) or even change it. Put Mickeymouse ears onto the person itinvolves or give them a giant tash. Makethem fall over before they getto you. How about even changing theoutcome? Saying NO STOP in the wayyou couldn’t back then. This taes alot of practice but can really help.

Focusingon counting your breathing can help – keep thinking of the numbersfocus only on the numbers. Breath 1, 2 , 3, 4, out 2, 3, 4 in 2, 3, 4

Visualisation– When you start to flashbackclose your eyes and picture somewheresafe. Create that place indetail. Things in that space, smells, sounds.This safe space is aplace you cant be hurt. It’s a place you havecomplete control of.

A small object inyour pocket- When you’re out, try and have something in your pocketthat’s smallenough to hide easily. Giving yourself something to “messwith” if youwill helps you try and focus on something else other thanthe flashback.It could be something as simple as a coin, try to figureout what coinit is, and see if you can feel which side is the heads,and which sideis the tails. Sounds stupid, but it helps.

Wakingup other senses – Another thing that helps some people iswaking upother senses. You could try things like splashing water onyour face,moving up and about, smelling a comforting smell (likeperfume), orplaying a comforting song or something like that.

Carrya small object in your hand – Something you can fit inyour hand andsomething that has texture that you can feel. think aboutthe object andwhy you have it and such.

Talking to yourself- Say to yourself what you wanted to saythen and what you wanted todo…it changes the image in your head andonce it’s changed for thebetter you can let it play and know thatyou’ll be safe.

Counting- Counting can help distract your mind, and keep you focussed onsomething that isn’t the flashback.It’s also very discreet to count inyour head. Try to count by 2′s(although doubles can also work) as it isslightly challenging to seehow far / fast you can go, and the furtheryou can do the calmer youmight get, so it can help you measure whatlevel of focus you have. You might get so frustrated at counting it cancompletely distracts you!

A few ideas:

• :Ifyou are sitting, stand. If you are standing sit. Pay attention to themovement change.
• Reminding yourself — you are in control.Rub yourpalms, clap your hands. Listen to the sounds. Feel the sensation.
• If youhave a pet touch them. Feel their fur and speak the animals name outloud.Find your pulse on your wrist and count the beats per minute.Concentrate on feeling the blood pulse throughout your body.
• Cross yourlegs and arms. Feel the sensations of you controlling your body.
• Stomp your feet to remind yourself where you are
• Hold onto a stuffed animal as tight as you need to and just run your hand through the fur.
• Ifyou have aclose friend who knows you have trouble with flashbacks, youmight wantto let them know so they can kind of “call you back” toreality.
• Put both feet on the ground, and I talk aloud to yourself.
• Redo your makeup. it’ssomething that can be done in public too
• Splash face with coldwater
• Flick rubber band round wrist

these ones aren;t grounding methods as such… but can make flashbacksfeel not quite asbad (though no denying they are still not nice):

• Create a boundary.Sometimes during a flashback it feels as though you do not have anyskin, you don’t know where youbegin or stop. Wrap yourself in ablanket, anything that will make youfeel protected from the outside.
• Remind yourself it’s just a memory. The abuse is over, you survived and youare safe. The feelings and sensations you are experiencing are memories from the past.
• Take time to recover.Flashbacks are painful and draining. It may take awhile to recover.Give yourself time to feel better and stronger again.
• Honour (not right word really) your experience. Appreciate yourself for surviving. Recognize your courageand strength.Don’t fight it

Women, poverty and sex trafficking

The burden of caring for the family often rests more heavily on the mother. She likely works longer hours and may well be the only provider. In some rural areas of Africa, nearly half the families are headed by women. In some localities in the Western world, a significant proportion of families are headed by the female.

Furthermore, especially in developing countries, women traditionally handle some of the most laborious jobs, such as fetching water and firewood. Deforestation and overgrazing have made these tasks much more difficult. In some drought-plagued countries, women spend three or more hours every day searching for firewood and four hours a day fetching water. Only when this drudgery is done can they begin to do the work that is expected of them in the home or on the land.

Obviously, both men and women suffer in countries where poverty, hunger, or strife is the daily fare. But women suffer disproportionately. Will this situation ever change? Are there any real prospects that one day women everywhere will be treated with respect and consideration? Is there anything women can do now to improve their lot?

Every year an estimated one million children—mostly girls—are forced or sold into prostitution. Araya, who comes from Southeast Asia, recalls what happened to some of her classmates. “Kulvadee became a prostitute when she was only 13. She was a nice girl, but her mother often got drunk and used to play poker, so she had no time to care for her daughter. Kulvadee’s mother encouraged her to earn money by going out with men, and before long, she was working as a prostitute. Sivun, another pupil in my class, came from the north of the country. She was just 12 when her parents sent her to the capital to work as a prostitute. She had to work for two years to pay off the contract signed by her parents. Sivun and Kulvadee are not unusual—5 out of the 15 girls in my class became prostitutes.”

There are millions of youngsters like Sivun and Kulvadee. “The sex industry is a huge market with its own momentum,” laments Wassyla Tamzali, of UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization). “Selling a 14-year-old girl has become so commonplace, it is banal.” And once these girls are sold into sexual slavery, paying off their purchase price may prove almost impossible. Manju, whose father sold her when she was 12, still owed $300 (U.S.) after seven years of prostitution. “There was nothing I could do—I was trapped,” she explains.

Escaping AIDS may be nearly as difficult for the girls as escaping the pimps who enslave them. A survey conducted in Southeast Asia indicated that 33% of these child prostitutes were infected with AIDS. As long as the five-billion-dollar prostitution industry flourishes, it is likely that these girls will continue to suffer.

Forms of dissociative disorder

Dissociation is a mental process, which produces a lack of connection in a person’s thoughts, memories, feelings, actions, or sense of identity. During the period of time when a person is dissociating, certain information is not associated with other information as it normally would be. For example, during a traumatic experience, a person may dissociate the memory of the place and circumstances of the trauma from his/her ongoing memory, resulting in a temporary mental escape from the fear and pain of the trauma and, in some cases, a memory gap surrounding the experience. Because this process can produce changes in memory, people who frequently dissociate often find their senses of personal history and identity are affected.

Most clinicians believe that dissociation exists on a continuum of severity. This continuum reflects a wide range of experiences and/or symptoms. At one end are mild dissociative experiences common to most people, such as daydreaming, highway hypnosis, or “getting lost” in a book or movie, all of which involve “losing touch” with conscious awareness of one’s immediate surroundings. At the other extreme is complex, chronic dissociation, such as in cases of Dissociative Disorders, which may result in serious impairment or inability to function. Some people with Dissociative Disorders can hold highly responsible jobs, contributing to society in a variety of professions, the arts, and public service — appearing to function normally to coworkers, neighbors, and others with whom they interact daily.

Depersonalization

Persistent or recurrent experiences of feeling detached from, and as if one is an outside observer of, one’s mental processes or body (e.g., feeling like one is in a dream).

During the depersonalization experience, reality testing remains intact.

The depersonalization causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.

The depersonalization experience does not occur exclusively during the course of another mental disorder, such as Schizophrenia, Panic Disorder, Acute Stress Disorder, or another Dissociative Disorder, and is not due to the direct physiological effects of a substance (e.g., a drug of abuse, a medication) or a general medical condition (e.g., temporal lobe epilepsy).

Dissociative Fugue

Dissociative Fugue is one or more episodes of amnesia in which the inability to recall some or all of one’s past and either the loss of one’s identity or the formation of a new identity occur with sudden, unexpected, purposeful travel away from home.

Specific symptoms include:

• The predominant disturbance is sudden, unexpected travel away from home or one’s customary place of work, with inability to recall one’s past.
• Confusion about personal identity or assumption of a new identity (partial or complete).
• The disturbance does not occur exclusively during the course of Dissociative Identity Disorder and is not due to the direct physiological effects of a substance (e.g., a drug of abuse, a medication) or a general medical condition (e.g., temporal lobe epilepsy).
• The symptoms cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.

The length of a fugue may range from hours to weeks or months, occasionally longer. During the fugue, the person may appear normal and attract no attention. The person may assume a new name, identity, and domicile and may engage in complex social interactions. However, at some point, confusion about his identity or the return of the original identity may make the person aware of amnesia or cause distress.

The prevalence of dissociative fugue has been estimated at 0.2%, but it is much more common in connection with wars, accidents, and natural disasters. Persons with dissociative identity disorder frequently exhibit fugue behaviors.

The person often has no symptoms or is only mildly confused during the fugue. However, when the fugue ends, depression, discomfort, grief, shame, intense conflict, and suicidal or aggressive impulses may appear–ie, the person must deal with what he fled from. Failure to remember events of the fugue may cause confusion, distress, or even terror.

A fugue in progress is rarely recognized. It is suspected when a person seems confused over his identity, puzzled about his past, or confrontational when his new identity or the absence of an identity is challenged. Sometimes the fugue cannot be diagnosed until the person abruptly returns to his prefugue identity and is distressed to find himself in unfamiliar circumstances. The diagnosis is usually made retroactively based on the history with documentation of the circumstances before travel, the travel itself, and the establishment of an alternate life. Although dissociative fugue can recur, patients with frequent apparent fugues usually have dissociative identity disorder

Most fugues are brief and self-limited. Unless behavior has occurred before or during the fugue that has its own complications, impairment is usually mild and short-lived. If the fugue was prolonged and complications due to behavior before or during the fugue are significant, the person may have considerable difficulties–eg, a soldier may be charged as a deserter, and a person who marries may have inadvertently become a bigamist.

In the rare case in which the person is still in the fugue, recovering information (possibly with help from law enforcement and social services personnel) about his true identity, figuring out why it was abandoned, and facilitating its restoration are important.

Treatment involves methods such as hypnosis or drug-facilitated interviews. However, efforts to restore memory of the fugue period are often unsuccessful. A psychiatrist may help the person explore inner and interpersonal patterns of handling the types of situations, conflicts, and moods that precipitated the fugue to prevent subsequent fugue behavior.

Dissociative Amnesia

The predominant disturbance is one or more episodes of inability to recall important personal information, usually of a traumatic or stressful nature, that is too extensive to be explained by ordinary forgetfulness.

The disturbance does not occur exclusively during the course of Dissociative Identity Disorder, Dissociative Fugue, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Acute Stress Disorder, or Somatization Disorder and is not due to the direct physiological effects of a substance (e.g., a drug of abuse, a medication) or a neurological or other general medical condition (e.g., Amnestic Disorder Due to Head Trauma).

The symptoms cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.

Dissociative Identity Disorder

The presence of two or more distinct identities or personality states (each with its own relatively enduring pattern of perceiving, relating to, and thinking about the environment and self).

At least two of these identities or personality states recurrently take control of the person’s behavior.

Inability to recall important personal information that is too extensive to be explained by ordinary forgetfulness.

The disturbance is not due to the direct physiological effects of a substance (e.g., blackouts or chaotic behavior during Alcohol Intoxication) or a general medical condition (e.g., complex partial seizures). Note: In children, the symptoms are not attributable to imaginary playmates or other fantasy play.

DDNOS
Dissociaitive disorder nos otherwise specified is when a person has some of the symptoms of a dissociaitve disoreder but do not fulfill any of the specific diagnosic criteria.